Monday, February 24, 2014

The Laws of Physics in an Animation Universe

The Physics of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Cloudy with a
Chance of Meatballs is a 3-D animated feature film released in 2009
and produced by Sony Pictures Animation. It was directed by Phil Lord
and Chris Miller and was based on a book by the same name, written by
Judy and Ron Barrett. The movie, which heavily emphasized comedy and
exaggeration was stylized in a way which has negated realism much
more than several other animated films, as seen in its choice of
character designs, environments, general story, and of course in its
animation and physics. It is stylized much more in the vein of films
like Madagascar or Kung Fu Panda, rather than some of the more
grounded films like Disney's Tangled or Pixar's films. Because it
almost negates realism entirely, the animators were allowed to freely
style their character and object behaviors to create as much humorous
effect and cartoonish physical impact as was necessary. This is seen
in the way it plays with inertia and acceleration, the general lack
of consistency in the way things collide or take damage, and in the
way forces are generated.

The film's universe
tends to favor whatever forms of movement it takes to make an impact.
Because of this, it ignores the laws of inertia very often, and
allows objects to accelerate and decelerate unrealistically based on
whatever it needs the characters to do. This is very evident in the
way characters are made to comically behave. One of the most obvious
examples of this can be seen in the movements of the character of
Officer Earl, especially in the scene where he is first introduced
and scolds the main character, Flint Lockwood. Throughout the
conversation, his head jerks around unrealistically to get into
Flint's face in a way that would normally require a tremendous amount
of effort. Of course it would be impossible to accelerate the head
from a position of rest to the incredible amount of velocity it takes
so quickly to make it dart around the way it does. After he talks
with Flint, he quickly flips and somersaults away to catch a
jaywalker in a way that would also be impossible in a similar way.
There is simply no way for him to be able to change his velocity so
quickly due to the law of inertia, but they animators did so anyway,
and used this fact to make him entertaining to watch.

In addition to
this, there are several times in the film when forces are seemingly
generated out of nowhere. Officer Earl's insane somersaults which he
does both to catch the jaywalker and to escape form the giant food
avalanche later on in the film are prime examples of this. There is
no way that he could have generated the amount of force necessary to
do those movements. There are other times when objects in mid-air are
able to change directions rapidly or to halt their movements
seemingly without anything acting on them. This is seen many times
when a character is jumping, and suddenly lands much more quickly and
abruptly than he should. The animators did this to add the special
character that the jumps needed, both to escalate the power of
certain scenes and to make it more dynamic and interesting for the
audience to watch. In addition some forces are generated which seem
to keep objects in place which would normally be out of balance or
would fall over. There are many examples of characters moving in ways
that their bodies wouldn't be able to support – a particularly
clear one being the run cycles of the crowds as they flee the
disaster that has befallen their town. Some of them are leaned
backwards in ways that would normally offset their center of gravity,
causing them to fall over rather than continuing to remain able to
run they way they do. It is as if a force was in place keeping them
up, which normally would make no sense. But in this sort of film
where the rules of physics are broken so readily, the audience thinks
little of it, and the anomaly instead serves to add more character to
the film.

There is a lot of
action and chaos that occurs throughout the movie, and throughout it
there are several instances where characters are put through
circumstances which should normally lead to a large amount of
physical harm, or even death. The fact that it does not would
normally mean that they are made up of material much more resilient
to the forces enacted upon them than would normally be possible for
human beings, or that the force being acted upon them is unequal to
what it should be based on what they are being put in contact with.
This is fairly prevalent throughout the film, starting towards the
very beginning when the character Samantha Sparks jabs her feet into
Flint's eyes, or even hits his head on the railing in the same scene
with an incredible amount of apparent force – both of which cause
literally no damage to Flint. This continues well into the later half
of the movie, in times such as the one when Flint's falling off of
the incredibly tall jello tower doesn't kill or harm him, or during
the attack on the food-creating machine, when the characters are
tossed and bumped around in ways which would normally be lethal, but
wind up not being as such. The world behaves this way, of course,
because any level of realistic damage would be to unappealing for
viewers (especially since this is a kid's movie) and the characters
would likely not make it to the end of the film. In addition, the
slapstick provided by this sort of animation can be entertaining in a
sadistic sort of way, without being too messy.

These sort of
physics quirks are all horribly incorrect, and yet they have been
used as animation staples for quite some time. It is the ability to
change and alter physics in order to enhance the effect of certain
scenes and characterizations that makes animation the unique medium
that it is. Within the unique established worlds created within these
films, the audience is able to completely forgive these fallacies and
instead enjoy them as part of each movie's original style. The way
these are utilized in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a
testament to how sacrificing real physical rules in favor of comedic
or dramatic effect can really push the moments of an animated film
into something truly spectacular. The way it neglects the law of
inertia, creates nonsensical forces, and takes advantage of the
ability to ignore normal damage and collision physics are all part of
its strengths, which the animators of this film have used very
successfully.